The Wow! Scenario took their name from a drunken heckle. It’s a much better name than ‘You’re not very good’ – a short lived band I played bass for. That said, it’s probably best to leave the jokes to James Acaster, who is one half of The Wow! Scenario. Or is he?
The band were formed by Acaster and Graeme Wicks in 2004, though their album Stand in the Star. A Verse and a Chorus is as much a tribute to the perseverance of producer Chris Hamilton as it is to that of the original duo. Hamilton first mixed the album’s tracks in 2008, and he did so for the third time last year. Acaster said in a recent interview with Far Out Magazine: “On this album, I originally sang on it, when I was 22, but I couldn’t sing, and we’ve had to replace the vocals with people who can sing.” Three years ago, BC Camplight and Emma Daman recorded new vocals for the album, which has been described as “a highly experimental and eclectic mix of jazz, rock and pop.”
The rambunctious brass on ‘Driving!’ makes it sound like the theme tune for a late 60s kids show. Time signatures are passé here – if you try to tap a beat to ‘Driving!’, you will sprain your wrist. Spiky guitar takes us into Godspeed You! Black Emperor doom territory, and the darkness is exacerbated by cello. We’re basically a billion miles away from the track’s cartoon start, and the last 49 seconds are a jazz comedown. The discordant piano on ‘Once More!’ is like falling down an Alice in Wonderland portal. At one point brass instruments parp like traumatised ducks. Again, there’s little point in tapping or nodding along unless you want to cause yourself a genuine muscular complaint. The track becomes a jolly stomp: imagine Oompa-Loompas ecstatically clocking in for a shift at Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
‘Golf Socks!’ begins softly like Vampire Weekend jamming at three in the morning, careful not to annoy the neighbours. The refrain “Emptiness is wanting to / Hold a hand and be in love” is as sugary and addictive as Cornershop’s ‘Brimful of Asha’. The track then settles into something resembling a regular rhythm, and it becomes a comforting bustle – the sort of track that would perfectly soundtrack James Bond’s determined wending and weaving through a Moroccan market. ‘Alpaca Spinner!’ shimmers into view like an 80s arcade game having a meltdown, then it turns into a Paul Simon-like strum backed by ominous brass. BC Camplight and Emma Daman’s vocals interlock beautifully and give the madness a semblance of clarity. For a minute, the track is a Beach House meets Camera Obscura trip through space. After some lovely harmonies and a karate “Hey!” there is another jazz comedown.
‘Reality!’ features what sounds like a demented grandfather clock and silver spoons being repeatedly dropped on stairs. This unsettling tinkling abruptly stops and gives way to pretty piano and Camplight’s harmonised vocals. Violin tentatively joins in, and the track becomes Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci at their pastoral best. “Apologies for the conflicting directions of my heart,” sings/sighs Daman shortly before the track ends. The guitar at the start of ‘Instructions!’ has the piercing, clean quality of The Sundays, and Daman somehow manages to construct sentences over Acaster and Wicks’ sound collage, which is bumpier than a tuk-tuck ride down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. The last third of the track is like a scratched Portishead record, which is to say it’s more sinister than a Reform councillor’s internal monologue.
Lead single ‘Zacuti!’ is a big, brassy, Beach Boys-like belter for almost two minutes, and the second half includes guitar work that record label mates The Wave Pictures would have been proud to call their own. Lyric-less album closer ‘The Curse!’ is over nine minutes long, and is a return to the doom of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, albeit there is a subtle mood change at about five minutes in, which takes us into the realm of The Durutti Column.
If you want verses and choruses, then you’ll have to listen to another album or repeatedly read the title Stand in the Star. A Verse and a Chorus to yourself. The Wow! Scenario claim that, since the inclusion of talented collaborators, they have finally graduated from ‘impenetrable’ to ‘an acquired taste’. Very funny. Most definitely true.
Stand in the Star. A Verse and a Chorus is out now on Bella Union
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Review by Neil Laurenson
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